Video interview with Bukowski, at the Hellfest Festival 2018!

These guys were my very first interview at the Hellfest Festival, for DistrolutionTV. And what an interview! We unfortunately didn’t have much time, and I had so many questions that this interview could have lasted an hour. Anyway, I’m really happy to reveal my interview with Mathieu and Timon from the French rock band Bukowski. Learn more about their time at the Hellfest Festival, as well as their upcoming album below!

You just played on the Mainstage 2 this morning. There was a good energy, how did you feel it, on stage?Great, amazing. We’ve done the same, that’s what I say each time… We’ve done the same in 2012, same place, same time, with half the people. There, it was really cool. Plus, we had an ideal weather to play, it was not too hot, it was awesome! Of course, a little bit of pressure before going on stage, as usual! But hey it’s cool, it went well.

This is your second time at the Hellfest. What is it like, to have been approached again to play in such a festival?For me (Mathieu), it was a roar at home. I shouted, I said: “Ah no God, here we go again”! It’s stupid, but it’s all my life, so here it is! Yeah, it’s true. It’s life. Me (Timon), I got wasted, naked, directly. I was in my garden, I was happy. For guys like us, it’s amazing. Plus, on the mainstage. Thank you, thank you!

Your last album is from 2015 and you are in full preparation of the next record. What can we expect?We can expect, I’d say, regarding to the sound, to a back to basics. Because there is something more organic than on the last two albums. Because we’ve worked with Francis Caste who works really hard in the analog, so we came back to stuff really… much less cold.

And concerning the themes well… once more, always the same. We tell our lives, then we invent others. That’s it. Real stories, fiction, a mixture always well brought from both. There’s no guideline on this album. We did it. We continued to work as we did before. But it goes a little bit in all directions, that one, it will probably amaze more than one. We really went crazy! Musically, it’s… It’s a real fireworks!

For this new album, you had recourse to a crowdfunding campaign. Why crowdfunding?So, that’s only because we were sick of it. When you sign an artist contract, in fact, you give your music to a label. And here, we said no, we’re going to do that, we will be the owners of our tapes and our rights. And so for that, unfortunately, as we are poor rockers, we had no funding at all, so we went there. But it’s really for a purpose. There is a real explanation for all this. It’s really about owning our rights. There, it’s enough, we already had experiences in the past which ended badly.

On the other hand, it makes us happy as well to see that people want this new album. It’s a kind of exchange which makes us really happy, somewhere. They are ready to give some of their money to allow us to record our album and to be able to continue. Besides, it’s going very well, we are almost at the end. There, we are super happy, yeah!

Just before the festival, you released a first single called “Mysterious Smile”. Could you present us this track?So, it was a track… We didn’t choose the easiest track to shoot because it’s 5 minutes long, first of all. In addition, the theme is very difficult to put in image. Because it’s… In fact, we wanted to tell a cleavage between nature and concrete. Or the return to the roots and the grandiloquence of the buildings. And so, that’s not easy to put in image, but we are really happy with the result.

It’s a friend of us, well, who became a friend since. It’s the drummer of Smash Hit Combo who did that! He made the music video, he did it near our home. And we also wanted to pay tribute to our small town of Cergy, so that’s it. It’s a bit of all that and it went really well, we’re happy. And it was not the simplest thing to shoot, it’s true! We kind of got in each other’s ways by ourselves. It’s true that it’s not the most obvious track of the album. Yeah but even, we picked something a little crooked, we told each other “We’re not going to go in the basic single”. We don’t care! We warn you: It will be great!

Is it, according to you, the track that best represents the overall spirit of the new album?Oh he’s a little crooked too yeah… Well, I think he’s a little crooked too, that one. Compared to what we did before, we went looking for something a little different. It was the track we wanted to highlight anyway, knowing that it was not going to be the easiest to listen to. But yeah, yeah, we’re really proud! But, it does not represent the album either. It’s a drop of water. I mean, it’s a part of the album!

One last word for the end? Well listen, thank you! Thank you for contributing to our album, for those who participated to the Ulule. And above all, long life to you and thank you for your interest. Thank you for being there for us, and we will always be here! And looking forward to drinking a beer together later.

About Valentine Klipfel

As a huge fan of pop-punk, easycore and punk-rock music since forever, I officially started my career in 2011 by offering press relations and social media services to underground bands and labels.
In parallel, I also worked for other magazines and webzines, which allowed me to understand what a media wants to receive!
I've finally created my own webzine in 2015. Since then, I've continued in this direction in order to help bands and labels develop their visibility and notoriety worldwide.

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